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RE: [Repast-interest] new batch parameter format
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From: thowe <th...@sr...> - 2003-03-28 15:38:15
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I think that this is a neat solution, without a doubt, however my
primary concern is not display of the parameters, but with actually
creating them. Writing xml is still messy for non-programmers. (I want
to note that I'm making a distinction between people who write models in
repast as part of their research and professional programmers). We
could make a gui to generate the xml, but this won't work for people who
are using systems without a windowing system. So we still have the
problem that researcher would have to write parameter files with a messy
syntax.
-Tom
On Fri, 2003-03-28 at 09:23, Christopher Mackie wrote:
> On Fri 3/28/2003 at 8:41 Nick Collier wrote:
> However, I really did want to use XML for this, but when
> thinking about sample
> parameter file formats, the XML required text ("<", "=", etc.)
> seemed to
> partially obscure the relation of the parameters to one
> another. As our
> main concern was removing the confusion and obscurity that the
> "}" in
> the previous format created, XML didn't seem like an adequate
> substitute. That said, if I knew this was only going to be
> used by
> programmers I would only go with XML.
> Not a critique, just a question: wouldn't using XML with a suitable
> stylesheet allow you to have your cake and eat it too? The stylesheet
> can strip the syntax to which you object and present the
> parameter/model relationships in whatever form(s) you choose. I can
> see the two in combination being a useful teaching tool, letting the
> student see how the logical relationships in the stylesheet view are
> structured in the raw XML, and emphasizng the idea of a model-view
> distinction. It could even be that the stylesheet approach would have
> diagnostic utility, since a failed or unexpected parse by the
> stylesheet might help to illuminate logic errors that would be
> obscured in the batch language syntax.
>
> --Chris
>
>
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